Page 107 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

of people had been killed and injured after going to enjoy a football game and this left a horrible taste in my mouth and those of countless others.
An even worse disaster was waiting in the wings and that of course was at Hillsborough on 15th April 1989 and resulted in the deaths, some not immediate, of ninety-seven people. Fans were blamed for this one too but as we now all know the police organisation and, to a much lesser extent, the structure of the stadium, were responsible. If ninety-seven people had been killed at a posh do like the Henley Regatta, do you think we’d have had to wait nearly thirty years to get some justice?
Meanwhile in the late Eighties I never went back to Roker Park and all of my friends had lost interest in going, though I still kept tabs on the fortunes of Sunderland A.F.C. Unfortunately things had got even worse because in 1987 we were relegated to the Third Division, a place we’d never visited before. In fact the following season turned out to be a happy one as we won the league by a mile with Marco Gabbiadini getting twenty-one goals and were promptly back in the Second Division. In 1990 we got back into the First Division, albeit in a roundabout way after rivals Swindon were disqualified (who cared?). I was working in Crete when that happened and remember being very happy as I walked along the sunny pier in Heraklion.
I had a major surge in interest in the 1991-1992 season when we again got to the F.A. Cup Final as a Second
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